Scavengers

I am in the land of the “kills.” Names like Peekskill, Plattekill, Wallkill, and Fishkill, all part of upstate New York. The suffix “kill” refers to water tributaries in the founding Dutch dialect. This is the real Dutch from Holland not the Deutsch (German) that I grew up calling “Dutch.” The evidence of these founding fathers is everywhere and the names are Van Skoy or Vanderlaan instead of our Pennsylvania Deutsch Druchenmueller or Newswanger. The Catskill Mountain region is magnificent and it is a special treat to enjoy Thanksgiving in this area.



As I stepped out into the heavy morning dew to watch my friend Dixie (a Golden Retriever) frolic, I am in awe of the natural beauty of this area. There is a small stream, which the last time I visited housed a resident pair of beavers. It is bordered by an expansive meadow in the midst of extensive woodlands. There is a set of railroad tracks on the edge of the property guiding lumbering freight trains to Albany and Montreal.


I am enjoying my brother and sister-in-law’s wonderful hospitality on their 1747 era 34 acre wooded farm. What a treat! They have spent the last twenty-five years successfully transforming the rustic stone homestead and accompanying barn and property into a virtual Shangri-La. It is awesome to survey the massive cavernous stone walls which are several feet thick. Only one original doorway remains intact without modification. It is quite evident that past generations were more compact because the top of that door frame is below my chin level. When I walk through the home today, I don’t fully appreciate the labor of placing two thousand plus shims to level the uneven floors or other labor. I try to picture what it was like to fashion these massive structural beams. It is my understanding that a huge tree was toppled and then a trench was laboriously dug under it. A man worked on the top of the felled tree and a boy in the trench underneath to hew these beams. Thus the term “a man and a boy” was coined. Now their superhuman efforts long ago coupled with extensive painstaking renovations over the years contribute to a coziness that makes me feel like hibernating.


My brother-in-law is quite an experienced outdoorsman and cherishes the wildlife that abounds on this property. He actually has a heated observation point built into his barn overlooking the meadow. Recently someone brought a road-killed deer and it is staked securely in a prominent spot in the meadow. There is not much to see in the daytime although a 194 pound Boar Black Bear visited the day before yesterday to check it out. The reason we know that it was 194 pounds is that a neighboring friend successfully started him on the journey to possibly becoming a beautiful $800 bear skin rug.


According to my brother in law, the real activity comes during the cover of darkness. He has a motion-activated digital game camera positioned to view the carcass and anything that visits it. When we downloaded the photographs onto a computer, we were amazed. In addition to the bear mentioned previously, a fox and then at least one coyote appeared out of the darkness. The camera recorded the fact that the coyote came at 4:19 AM as everyone slept. It warily dined for about a half an hour before slipping back into the darkness.


As I stare at the pictures of the coyote with its beady eyes, I think of the “coyotes” that come to nibble at the rotting spoils that I sometimes leave deposited in the pastures of my life. Everything may appear fine, but I sometimes sense something unpleasant lurking in the shadows especially under the cover of darkness. Unfortunately, there isn’t a game camera that can capture and validate what I sense. It doesn’t make any difference. I don’t intend to leave the decay that attracts these lurking scavengers as I rest in the eternal security provided on hand-hewn beams long ago.